Combating Social Loafing Performance Reductions in Virtual
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Combating Social Loafing Performance Reductions in Virtual Groups With Increased Cohesion, Reduced Deindividuation, and Heightened Evaluation Potential Through Self-Disclosure. The Harvard community has made this article openly available. Please share how this access benefits you. Your story matters Citation Hagen, Matthew Howard. 2015. Combating Social Loafing Performance Reductions in Virtual Groups With Increased Cohesion, Reduced Deindividuation, and Heightened Evaluation Potential Through Self-Disclosure.. Master's thesis, Harvard Extension School. Citable link http://nrs.harvard.edu/urn-3:HUL.InstRepos:24078371 Terms of Use This article was downloaded from Harvard University’s DASH repository, and is made available under the terms and conditions applicable to Other Posted Material, as set forth at http:// nrs.harvard.edu/urn-3:HUL.InstRepos:dash.current.terms-of- use#LAA Combating Social Loafing Performance Reductions in Virtual Groups with Increased Cohesion, Reduced Deindividuation, and Heightened Evaluation Potential Through Self- Disclosure. Matthew H. Hagen A Thesis in the Field of Psychology for the Degree of Master of Liberal Arts in Extension Studies Harvard University November 2015 ©2015 Matthew H. Hagen Abstract Over 100 years of research have shown that social loafing is a real and material psychological phenomenon that reduces performance among humans in groups. It is known that increasing evaluation potential, decreasing deindividuation, and cohesion all lead to reduced social loafing in physical environments. What has not yet been well researched is whether or not the findings associated with many of these variables also apply to virtualized working environments. In the present study, 200 individuals were recruited through Amazon Mechanical Turk (an online work community) and were split into experimental and control groups. While both sets of participants engaged in identical alphabetization tasks and were informed that they were the final member of a five-person team, only the experimental subjects were asked to read the short biographies of their teammates and write a short biography of themselves for their teammates to read. By having experimental participants engage in self-disclosure it was expected they would experience reduced deindividuation (which is common with virtual teams), increased perceived evaluation potential, and increased feelings of cohesion. Differences in quantity and quality of performance, and differences in morale (although not cohesion itself), were all in the expected direction, though none achieved levels of statistical significance driven largely by material performance variances within the datasets. Experimental subjects produced, on average, 1.9% additional correct alphabetization groupings (averaging 16.64 of 50 among experimental participants and 16.33 of 50 among control participants) compared to control subjects who were only aware they were a member of a team (F(1, 164) = .04, p >.05). Furthermore, in addition to attempting to alphabetize more groups, the experimental subjects’ answers were, on average, 0.38% more likely to be alphabetized correctly (F (1, 164) = .03, p > .05). The Perceived Cohesion Scale (PCS) (Bollen & Hoyle, 1990) was included in 160 of the participants’ tasks and experimental subjects scored 2.3% higher (F(1, 122) = .209, p > .05) in feelings of “being enthusiastic about working online”, 3.0% higher (F(1, 122) = .49, p > .05) on being “happy to be working on Amazon Mechanical Turk”, 1.4% higher (F(1, 122) = .04, p > .05) on believing that Amazon Mechanical Turk was “one of the best working communities in the world”, and 2.3% higher (F(1, 122) = .22, p > .05) on the entire category of “Feelings of Morale”. As an example of the level of variance within the data, the standard deviation (SD) for number of groupings that the experimental participants attempted to alphabetize (out of 50) was 11.57 on an average of 19.84 attempts. For control participants the standard deviation (SD) for number of attempted groupings (out of 50) was 11.31 out of 19.39 average completed attempts. The sample size required to achieve statistical significance at those levels of SD paired with the level of differences in sample mean performance would measure in the thousands. Furthermore, while some heteroskedasticity was discovered among pilot PCS- statement category data while testing for homogeneity (and were subsequently analyzed using additional robust Welch and Forsythe equality of means testing), the performance data overall passed Levene’s test. Once the heteroskedastic pilot data was tested to iv accommodate for the heteroskedasticity within, one PCS statement category (HTB, where experimental participants expressed a happiness to be working on AMT) approached the .05 alpha of statistical significance (p = .08). Despite the lack of statistical significance, this work should be considered valuable as a reference point. Finding any difference at all, in the expected direction, is within itself notable given how tiny the actual cohesion-inducing treatment was (i.e., a self-statement of only a few lines) and how short-term the perceived association with their teammates was (i.e., less than half an hour). v Author’s Biographical Sketch Matthew H. Hagen was born and raised in West Des Moines, IA. He was a Phi Beta Kappa undergraduate of Luther College and an F.W. Olin Scholar at Babson College where he earned his MBA. He has thus far spent the majority of his adult life on the East Coast working for IBM where he has received the honor of being elected to IBM’s elite Business & Technical Leadership Program. Over the course of his career he has served as the Planning Coordinator for IBM’s Software Solutions Group worldwide, the Senior Financial Analyst in charge of pricing & investment strategy for IBM’s Social Portfolio worldwide, and as a Senior Product Line Manager & IBM Thought Leader for IBM’s Commerce Group worldwide. During this period he simultaneously pursued a Masters of Liberal Arts in Psychology at Harvard University through its Division of Continuing Education. In addition to his various corporate and academic achievements, Matthew had the honor of performing in Carnegie Hall at age 17, being a recipient of the Gold Medal of Achievement for early adulthood achievement (2002), awardee of the Erdman Prize for Entrepreneurship (2006), winner of the HEBS “Personal Brand Elevator Pitch” Competition (2012), winner of IBM’s “Trusted Business Advisor” Business Case Competition for his “US Operations Cash Model” (2013), and currently sits on the Board of Directors for the Nature Walks Conservation Society (a federally recognized 501c3 non-profit). vi Dedication To those who stood by me through thick and thin. vii Acknowledgements I want to take this moment to acknowledge the countless individuals who have played invaluable roles in helping me get to where I stand today. I have been blessed with the good fortune of having spent the majority of my life surrounded by incredibly gifted people and have been luckier still to have been able to do so across a myriad of subject matter. I would first and foremost like to thank my Thesis Director Professor Robert Kegan and the Harvard ALM Program’s Behavioral Sciences Research Advisor Dante Spetter. Without their tireless patience, guidance, and steadfast devotion to my success this wouldn’t have been possible. I would also like to thank all the faculty (across my scholastic background) who consistently went out of their way to make the most of my educational experience, my mentors, my friends, my girlfriend, and my family, as well as The IBM Corporation, for helping kindle my intellectual curiosity and for their continuous support. Many incredible people have gone to painstaking lengths to help me along my journey as I strive towards becoming a better businessman, scholar, and human being. And I thank you all again (as always). viii Table of Contents Author’s Biographical Sketch.……………………………………………………………vi Dedication………………………………………..……..…………………………..…....vii Acknowledgements………………………………………………………………….….viii List of Tables………………..……………………………………………….…………...xi I. Introduction………………………………………………………………………….1 Motivation & Demotivation……………………………………………………….2 Social Loafing………………………………………………………….………….5 Virtual Collaboration…………………………………………………………….11 II. Research Method..…………………………………………………………………..17 Definition of Terms………..…………………………………………………….17 Participants……………………………………………………………………….18 Procedure…………………………………..…………………………………….19 Design……………………………………………………...…………………….20 Measures….. …………………………………………………………………….24 Analysis Plan ……………………………………………………………………24 III. Results………………………………………………………………………………26 Pilot (n = 18)………………………………………………….………………….27 Experimental vs. Control (n = 166)…………………………………………..….33 Perceived Cohesion Scale (PCS) (n = 124)………………………………...……35 ix IV. Discussion…………………………………………………………………………..41 Hypothesis, Brief Supportive Argument Overview, & Results in Context..…….41 Conclusions & Implications………………………………………………..…….47 New Questions Raised & Future Research Opportunities………………….……49 Research Limitations…………………………………………………………….51 Appendices…………………….……………………………………………………...…55 Appendix A: IRB Approval…………………………………………………..…55 Appendix B: Amazon Mechanical Turk HIT Description for Control Pilot/PCS…. ……………………………………………………………………………………56 Appendix C: Amazon Mechanical Turk HIT Description for Experimental Pilot/PCS…………………………………………………………………………72 Appendix D: Amazon Mechanical Turk HIT Description for Control (non- PCS)………………………………………………………………………...…....74